A heat exchanger, such as an air conditioner, is typically constructed by stacking a plurality of heat exchanger fins, in which a plurality of through-holes or cutaway portions have been formed to enable heat exchanger tubes to be inserted. Such heat exchanger fins can be manufactured by a manufacturing apparatus for heat exchanger fins 200 such as that depicted in FIG. 10. The manufacturing apparatus for heat exchanger fins 200 is equipped with an uncoiler 212, in which a thin metal plate 210 made of aluminum or the like as a thin plate material has been wound into a coil. The thin metal plate 210 pulled out from the uncoiler 212 via pinch rollers 214 is inserted into an oil applying apparatus 216 where machining oil is applied onto the surface of the thin metal plate 210, and is then supplied to a mold apparatus 220 provided inside a mold pressing unit 218.
The mold apparatus 220 internally includes an upper mold die set 222 that is capable of up-down movement and a lower mold die set 224 that is static. The mold apparatus 220 forms a plurality of collar-equipped through-holes or cutaway portions, where collars of a predetermined height are formed around through-holes, at predetermined intervals (in a matrix-like arrangement) in a predetermined direction. The result of machining the thin metal plate 210 to produce the through-holes or cutaway portions and the like is hereinafter referred to as the “metal strip 211”.
The metal strip 211 that has been machined is formed in a state where a plurality of heat exchanger fins as products are aligned in the width direction. For this reason, an inter-row slit apparatus 225 is provided at a position downstream of the mold apparatus 220. The inter-row slit apparatus 225 cuts the metal strip 211, which is intermittently fed by a feeding apparatus 226 after formation by the mold pressing unit 218, into a predetermined product width using upper blades 225A and lower blades 225B that come together to form metal strips of the product width 211A in the form of strips that are long in the conveying direction.
The metal strips of the product width 211A formed by the inter-row slit apparatus 225 are cut into predetermined product lengths by a cutter 227 and thereby formed into heat exchanger fins 213 that are the intended product to be manufactured. The heat exchanger fins 213 formed in this way are stored in a stacker 228. The stacker 228 has a plurality of pins 229 that are erected in the vertical direction, and the heat exchanger fins 213 are stacked and held in the stacker 228 by inserting the pins 229 into the through-holes or the cutaway portions that have been formed in the heat exchanger fins 213.